Agritech start-up Ecozen raises $6 m in Series A funding

Agritech start-up Ecozen on Thursday said it has raised $6 million (around ₹42 crore) in a Series A funding round to finance its expansion plan.

Based in Pune, Ecozen was founded by three IIT-Kharagpur alumni — Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey. It develops technology-enabled products to strengthen the farm-to-fork value chain of perishables.

Ecozen said in a statement it completed its $6-million Series A fund-raise after receiving an investment from Sathguru Catalyser’s Innovation in Food & Agriculture Fund (IFA Fund). This funding is on top of the investment received in July 2019 from Caspian and the Hivos-Triodos Fund.

Omnivore, which originally invested in Ecozen in 2015, also participated in this round.

The company had raised $3 million in seed funding.

Yield increase

Ecozen’s irrigation and cold chain products (Ecotron and Ecofrost) help farmers who grow perishables to increase their yields, store their produce longer, and realise higher prices. The company said about 25,000 farmers in India use its products.

A Krishna Kumar, former MD of State Bank of India, will be joining Ecozen’s board as the company embarks on its next phase of growth, the statement said.

Ecozen co-founder and CEO Devendra Gupta said: “The funding raised will enable us to expand our product range, production capacity, and enter new geographies.”